Geneva School Board learns more about planned Family Resource Center

GENEVA – The Geneva Area City School Board heard a presentation about its planned Family Resource Center at its meeting in March.
Julie Ramos and Joseph Spiccia, of Anchor Point Strategies, LLC, which has an agreement with the school district to assist in making the Family Resource Center a reality, attended the meeting as Spiccia spoke to the board about the effort.
Plans call for the district’s Family Resource Center to be located in “the house on the hill” above Geneva High School.
The formally stated goals for the center, which will serve students and families in Geneva, are to provide access to healthcare, behavioral health, and essential services; support family stability to improve student outcomes; and create a hub connecting schools, agencies, and community partners, according to information that was presented at the meeting.
“It’s a big project that will support and help the students, the families and the entire Geneva community,” Spiccia told the board.
He noted that a community needs assessment was done.
“Over the past month and a half roughly, we’ve talked to over a hundred members of the Geneva community,” Spiccia said, noting this included students, staff, community members, social service agencies, “legislative folks,” and local government.
“Through these focus groups, they tell us what they need, what you need,” he continued.
He noted that several priorities were identified.
“Priorities told us that behavioral and mental-health services are a must,” Spiccia said. “They came out on every single survey that we did, in every single focus group.
He also noted that primary healthcare access was “key and important.”
According to Spiccia, only 31 percent of the students in Geneva have had a primary care visit in the last year.
“So, that leaves two-thirds of the students in the district who don’t get a primary care visit,” he said. “Part of the goal of the Family Resource Center is to ensure that every single student gets the primary care services they likely need.”
In addition, Spiccia said dental care partnerships were critical. In his experience, he said, dental care is an oftentimes a missed piece of the puzzle.
He also said food and clothing pantry services are always a need in every community, as well as family support and referral services.
Spiccia said he has toured the house on the hill and shared the information with the architect, who he said did a preliminary assessment.
“And this is what they would suggest to you,” he said. “The upstairs, which has its own entrance from the main road, can be renovated for medical exam rooms, counseling office space, offices and education space.”
He noted that a food and clothing pantry is recommended for the downstairs.
“The beauty of the space is you have separate entrances for each at this point in time,” he added. “If you’re coming in for a dentist office appointment, you don’t have to go through the pantry. If you’re going to the pantry, you don’t have to go through the medical exam rooms.”
Spiccia said the exterior will need some work.
This includes accessible parking and safe community access designed to support healthcare delivery and community services.
In addition, Spicia talked about community and agency partnerships.
He said the community services in Ashtabula County are welcoming and interested and want to participate, noting this hasn’t been the case in other counties.
“So, you’re very fortunate you’re in a great spot right now because the community services in this county want to participate in this process,” he said.
Turning to funding, Spiccia said he and Ramos have written a state capital funding grant to the state legislature.
“This year, Ohio has $4.2 billion in that budget,” he told the board, noting that they asked “for a chunk of that money” to be used to renovate the house. “In addition, we’ve written two federal grants through Sen. Husted’s office, one for purposes of transportation. One of the things we learned in the focus groups is transportation is a challenge.”
He said not everyone has access to transportation. Public transportation is, at best, limited, he said.
“So, we’ve written a grant through Sen. Husted’s office to create some transportation access and to do some additional renovation work, if necessary,” he added.
Spiccia noted that they’re also working with local foundation partners. He said foundations will often do matching funds.
“So, our goal through the state and federal grants is to come up with the matching dollars before we go to the local folks for an exact ask,” he said.
He also spoke about how funding might work for students who are non-Medicaid eligible to get service.
He said they could be seen for free, too.
“So, how does the healthcare agency get paid for that?” he asked. “Well, what we’re recommending to the district is that the district charges the health care agency rent to use their space. It’s your space. You charge rent. They pay you rent. You pay the non-Medicaid eligible students using that rent money.”
He estimated that the cost to the district for the Family Resource Center would be only the expenses for heat, lights, water and cleaning.
Spiccia also reviewed what he said is a pretty aggressive timeline for the center.
“We expect that the funding that we secure through the state capital grant or through the federal grants will come together sometime in April, not beyond the end of April,” he said.
If that’s the case, he said a design and development team would then be chosen and the renovation would start during the Summer.
“And we think if everything falls into place, on the 25th of August, which is your first day of school…we should be able to launch initial services,” he said. “Now, you never know what’s going to happen when you start knocking down walls. Okay? So, we want to caution you a little bit about that. But we believe we could start our initial launch at some point early, if not on the first day of school ‘26-27, and then it becomes up to you how to expand services.”
His presentation notes that challenges include renovation costs and potential surprises, securing sustainable funding, community awareness and engagement, partner coordination and ensuring consistent family participation.
Afterwards, the presentation was opened up to questions.
Board member Beth Cybulski asked if the district had to make the house ADA compliant as it’s renovating the building.
“Because I know that was part of our use issue in the past, was the expense of doing that,” she said.
Spiccia said it may happen and is in the hands of the architect.
“Now, we did write into the state capital grant enough money to do an ADA compliance kind of thing, you know, an elevator or a lift of some sort,” he said. “But if that were to come up short, we already talked to Ashtabula County (Board of) DD, and they’re happy to try to help with that as well.”
Board President Michele Krieg asked Spiccia about parking.
“Because I’m with you, parking on the road is not going to be an option up there,” she said.
“The initial architect’s thoughts is a driveway that would take you around the back of the building, asphalt back there,” Spiccia said, adding that there would be walkways to the house.
He also said some parking right in the front could be expanded for the people who work at the center.
“So when the nurse practitioner gets to work in the morning, she or he would pull into there and park there,” he said. “But for the clients, they would park around the back.”
“I want to thank you both,” district Superintendent Dr. Paul Lombardo told Ramos and Spiccia. “I’ve known Joe for years and years and years.” He said they’re outstanding educators who care about kids and communities.
“And I couldn’t be happier partnering with you on this,” he told them. “So, I really appreciate you guys. I truly do.”